Texas highway officials are about to do something rarely done, especially in traffic-plagued Dallas: tear down a major, heavily used freeway because it’s ugly, unsafe and — in the minds of many — responsible for decades of urban decay.

The plan is to connect C.F. Hawn Freeway in South Dallas to Interstate 45, a step that will greatly reduce traffic on what is now known as S.M. Wright Freeway. With most of the traffic rerouted, S.M. Wright can safely be torn down and replaced with a landscaped, meandering boulevard.

Everyone seems to agree that the planned six-lane road will be a big improvement over the elevated eyesore built to bypass residential neighborhoods nearly 50 years ago.

Even so, some nearby residents say the new S.M. Wright Parkway is the wrong approach that does too little to reverse decades of damage caused by the original highway.

For three years, community organizers have been advocating an alternative: four lanes of traffic instead of six, slowing down traffic even more and leaving enough publicly owned right of way to encourage development along the new boulevard.

They’re essentially raising an increasingly central question: Is the primary purpose of roads to move more cars or to serve the needs of neighborhoods and people?

Robert Foster, who lives half a mile from S.M. Wright Freeway, asks: Why not bring people to South Dallas instead of through it?

“A community in need of jobs and new families raises the question of building a four-lane street with parking, wide sidewalks, apartments and townhomes, shopping and offices that will promote economic renewal,” Foster said.

But so far, the four-lane option has been rejected by state transportation officials and by Dallas City Council member Carolyn Davis, who represents the area.

Here’s why, they say: Even with most of the traffic rerouted to Interstate 45, as many as 40,000 cars a day would still use the new lanes if they could.

Matt Craig of Halff Associates, the engineers designing the road for the Texas Department of Transportation, said if 40,000 vehicles tried to use a four-lane road every day, drivers would be stuck for two to three cycles at every red light.

Davis is a staunch supporter of the official line, explaining Wednesday that: “I am supporting TxDOT. That is who I am supporting. They are the experts.”

Besides, she said, “It’s a wonderful plan. It’s needed, and we will continue to work to make sure it’s built. And I like the landscaping. It’s going to be a beautiful boulevard.”

TxDOT unveiled its long-simmering plan for rebuilding S.M. Wright last week at a public meeting in South Dallas. Officials detailed a two-stage process that will begin by eliminating Dead Man’s Curve, the dangerous juncture between C.F. Hawn Freeway and S.M. Wright.

Construction could begin in 2014, and by 2019, the area would have a tree-lined parkway that supporters say wouldn’t look out of place running along Turtle Creek in Highland Park. TxDOT says the at-grade road would allow some cross-traffic while remaining an important “arterial” road designed to move traffic through.

Neighbors’ opinions

The Rev. S.M. Wright Jr., pastor at the South Dallas church his father led for decades, said he supports the six-lane plan. It just makes sense, he said, to make sure the new boulevard plays its role in moving traffic. South Dallas residents don’t want to be stuck in traffic any more than residents elsewhere do, he said.

But others in the area say TxDOT’s vision is determined entirely by concern for traffic capacity. That, they argue, is badly outdated thinking.

“Taking the freeway down and putting in six lanes to move traffic, that doesn’t say anything about connecting and revitalizing that neighborhood,” organizer Henry Lawson said. “If the object is just related to traffic, then six makes sense. But if it is about rebuilding the neighborhood, then I think we need to talk about what connects the neighborhood, what gives us more vitality.”

The Rev. Gerald Britt agreed. In a blog post Friday, he wrote: “It’s an old, old story. It’s what happens when citizens don’t have the clout” to be heard at City Hall or the “organizational stamina” to keep at it until they win.

Britt said he and others continue to work on getting a hearing from Davis or others on the four-lane idea. He called that plan “a last, best opportunity for the type of comprehensive redevelopment needed for South Dallas.”

Their proposal is for four lanes, with a turning lane added in the middle and without most of the currently proposed landscaping. Traffic would slow, and the focus would shift from commuters passing through the neighborhood to folks driving to and from it.

The hope is that businesses, nonprofit groups, apartments and other concerns would sprout along the new street.

An uphill battle

In pressing for a hearing on the alternative plan, Lawson and others face an uphill task.

TxDOT, which is responsible for paying most of the projected $151 million cost, would have to agree or be persuaded by the Dallas City Council. There will be a public hearing for the project this fall, and soon after that, a firm decision is expected about when and how to proceed.

TxDOT spokesman Mark Pettit said if the city of Dallas strongly preferred four lanes to six, the state would have no choice but to change direction.

Keith Manoy, the city’s senior planner for the project, said staff has heard arguments for and against the two options, but TxDOT’s traffic-based analysis held sway.

“If we are going to spend millions on a road project, we want to make sure it has some shelf life,” he said. Traffic jams on a brand-new road would make no one happy, he said.

Still, he concedes that no matter how many lanes are built, traffic will almost always fill them up — a pattern repeated hundreds of times nationwide.

“The six-lane plan really grew out of traffic assumptions based on models” from TxDOT, he said. “And we spent a lot of time creating enhancements to the landscaping and other amenities that really seemed to be what people had wanted.”

He also acknowledged the changing paradigm nationwide in which traffic capacity is no longer the sole determining factor for how large a road should be.

Still, time is running out for advocates. Unless the council insists on hearing both approaches detailed, the plan endorsed by TxDOT will likely prevail. So far, other council members have deferred to Davis’ judgment.

But the debate could catch a second wind. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins said Thursday that the council should have a full hearing on both approaches.

He said it’s too soon to know whether the four-lane plan would have the most merit. But he agrees with Lawson and others that the focus ought to shift away from TxDOT’s emphasis on traffic capacity. Slowing down traffic in South Dallas, he said, would be a good thing, since that might lead more people to want to stop rather than drive through.

Lawson said he and others have been disappointed that they haven’t been heard but haven’t given up.

“They never gave us an honest shot to come in and talk to us about our plan,” he said. “And that is still the case today. A year and a half has gone by, and they come back and say, ‘Here’s our plan.’ So we have to go back and start all over.”